


Mornings Aren't for Everyone

by EzzyDean



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 03:39:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EzzyDean/pseuds/EzzyDean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the people who know you the best are the ones you wish didn't.  Fenris and Merrill have a morning chat.  They communicate in their own special way and sometimes that's for the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mornings Aren't for Everyone

The air held the smell of rain even as the sun broke through the clouds and turned the dewy path into a sea of sparkling light.  Fenris adjusted the sword strapped between his shoulders and glanced back to the city, gauging the distance he had traveled.  As much as he disliked being in the wilderness it was getting too stuffy there with the tension between mages and Templars getting stronger every day and even he needed a break once in a while.  How the others could spend so much time in that place was a mystery to him.  Further up this mountain path was a quiet clearing overlooking the coast that he had been visiting every so often to get some sword work in.  The work outs helped calm him and keep his skills sharp, plus fighting on terrain other than the halls of his mansion was good practice.  He hadn’t bothered telling anyone where he disappeared to and he didn’t know or care if anyone had noticed.  Coming to the entrance to the clearing he took a deep breath and stretched.  His fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword when he noticed the figure sitting under the trees opposite him.  When he recognized the slight green figure his hand dropped back to his side.  Of course she was here.  Turning to leave he was stopped when her voice - low, cracked, and devoid of its usual cheer - reached him.

“What are you doing here, Fenris?  I didn’t think you liked the mud and air.”  There were a hundred easy answers he could give her that would satisfy her curiosity and let him leave.  Keeping his back to her he looked towards the city, now hidden beyond the trees, and answered truthfully.

 

“Sometimes the city is too familiar, even for me.  What about you?  Just sitting around is a bit quiet for you, isn’t it?”

“I wanted someplace to think and I saw you head out this way one day a while ago and thought I’d see if I could find where you went.  You always seemed like you’d know of quiet places.”  He glanced over his shoulder and saw her staring at her hands as if they were covered in something, but from where he was he could see nothing.  “It’s been bothering me, you know.  What you said.  I wanted to try and figure it out.”

“What exactly bothered you?  I have said many things to you over these years.”  The clouds drifted past the sun and he felt the ground warming beneath his feet as he turned to face her.  An unusual silence had crept into the clearing and he shifted, muscles preparing for a blow, waiting for her to finally speak her mind.  He could feel the darkness that had settled upon her, charging the heavy air.  So often she had brushed away his and, he assumed, everyone else’s opinions and sympathies over what happened as though their thoughts meant nothing to her.  Maybe she was finally ready to start admitting things.  Maybe she was finally ready to break.

“I,” she started then took a moment to take a deep breath, “I did not abandon my people.  I did not ask the Keeper to,” swallowing hard she blinked tears from her eyes, “do what she did.  All I was trying to do was help my people.  I…I…” her voice broke and she let out a harsh groan.  He watched her shaking, tears dropping onto her crossed knees, fingers limp in her lap, for only a minute before striding over and grabbing her chin.  He forced her head back against the tree and made her look him in the eyes.

“Just admit it.” He growled.  “You murdered them.  You killed your entire clan for what?  A chance to grasp a piece of history that even your Keeper was willing to lose?  Your clan and keeper are gone now all because of a selfish attempt to regain some pointless history better left forgotten.”  The sorrow in her eyes flashed into anger and, dare he think it, rage in the moments it took her to gasp and slap his hand away.  She stood and slipped her fingers around the staff of her Keeper, her staff now, and he took a couple steps away from her giving her a cold smile.  “Admit it.  You are a monster.”  He felt the ground beneath him shifting as rocks began covering her body. 

“I’m a monster?  You’re one to talk, Fenris.”  She pointed her staff at him and he spun to the side, deflecting the chunk of earth that flew at him as he drew his sword.  “You killed your own sister!”  More pieces of earth, twined with sparks of lightning, rushed towards him as she spoke.  “Your only link to the family you claimed to want in your life.”  He leapt into the air at her and she sidestepped him, leaving him to cleave the ground as she gathered her will.

“She betrayed me and sold me out to the man I had spent my last years running from.  The very man who made me a slave in the first place!”  Hopping over the roots snaking out of the ground he rushed at her again trying to keep her off balance.  He had learned through many battles at her side that quickness and an attempt to distract her in some way were his only chances at a victory.

“You still killed her in cold blood.”  His sword dinged off her rock armor and he felt a layer of ice zip through it, freezing his hands even as he felt the lyrium in his skin repel it and he swept his sword at her feet.

“We kill people every day, Merrill.  It is, unfortunately, the way of things around here.”  Dodging the stone and ice boulders she flung his way he slowly attacked her, backing her across the clearing towards the large trees near the entrance.  Even as they ripped the clearing apart they both kept their footing; too many battles for survival had taught them to adapt quickly.  “It happens all the time.  We, you included, kill people.  They might have families and histories and clans of their own.  But do you ever second guess that?”

“Of course I wonder if it’s really necessary to kill them.  I wonder if there’s another way.” His sword connected with her rock armor again and she quickly swung her staff at him, narrowly missing his head as he ducked.

“Then why do you do it?  Because Hawke says so?” 

“No.  I-” She tried to step away from him and he swung at her again forcing her closer to the trees.

“Then why, Merrill?”

“Because it has to be done.  Because they are hurting people or planning to hurt people.  Or-” With her back against the trees he lunged at her again, pinning her to one with his free hand against her chest.  He felt the ice and fire she commanded pulse against his markings but he ignored the pain, pushing her against the tree with every question.

“So why did you dabble in blood magic?  Why did you insist on trying to restore that mirror even if there was a chance it would ruin everything?  Why did you do it even when your Keeper begged you not to?”  Fenris swung in for what would be the blow to knock her down but she was gone and his sword hit the tree instead.  He felt the vines wrap his ankles a second too late and was on the ground in an instant, vines tangling over him pinning him there.  Merrill reappeared beside him, shouting down at him.

“Because I had to!”  She blinked for a moment and stared at him, eyes widening.  When what she had admitted sank in she needed the staff to hold herself up.  “I had to.  I couldn’t let all our history keep getting taken away from us and forgotten.  Because no one else was willing to see it.”  Looking up at the staff that was now hers she whispered.  “Because I was chosen to be the next Keeper and it was my duty as such to remember the knowledge of our past.”  Fenris scoffed and rolled his eyes away from her, not bothering to try and free himself.  She had captured him fairly.

“Your past.  You are all so concerned with your past.  It is nothing but a burden.”  She gave him a sad look and shook her head.

“We are more alike than you think, Fenris.  We both carry heavy burdens.”  Bending down and lightly touching the skin beside the marking on his arm she sighed.  “We both wear the marks of our past on our skin.”

“You said your markings are a symbol of pride, of coming of age.  They don’t cause you to ache.”

“You think my markings don’t cause me pain?  My markings remind me of my past every time I see them!  I avoid looking at my reflection just as much as you do.”  He turned to her, surprised that she had picked up on his habit, but she wasn’t looking at him any longer.   Her voice faded as she walked to a side path that would lead down to the coast.  “My markings are a reminder of everything I’ve failed at.”  When she turned to look back at him he felt the vines and roots holding him down tighten and one wrapped itself across his forehead, pricking at the skin above his eye.  “So please just stop acting as though you are so much better than me just because my mistakes have been different than yours.  You aren’t perfect either, you know.”  She turned her back on him again and by the time he freed himself she was gone.  Down to the coast or back to the city, he didn’t know.  Either way he hoped that she had listened to what he was saying and what she had admitted herself.  A brooding and distracted mage was not someone he wanted watching his back.  Looking around at the uneven and pockmarked clearing he strapped his sword on his back and sighed.  He’d have to find a new place to practice now but at least he got one last session out of the clearing.


End file.
